


everything looks better from above my king

by Swamp_Cat



Category: Mozart l'Opéra Rock - Mozart/Baguian & Guirao
Genre: M/M, Multi, aahahhaha, hahahahha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 12:30:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19464025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swamp_Cat/pseuds/Swamp_Cat
Summary: He is supposed to be filling in the accompaniments for the aria of an opera commissioned by a duke who was much too boring to still draw breath, and the deadline was closer than comfortable, but for the life of him Salieri could not find his head. His mind was a blue theatre filled with snow.





	everything looks better from above my king

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhhhh welcome, welcome. if youre here then i hope you like extreme dramatics and wild confusion and a good deal of drag queens and kings! lets get this party started.

At night Salieri dreams of an opera. 

It is simple. He works on his commissions, he sups, eventually, he paces his private rooms into the wee hours of the night and when he finally does fall asleep his dreams are so loud that he loses grasp upon the difference.

In the very last night's performance, he was playing the piano forte while Mme. Weber and Amadeus perform en pointe on stage. The entire theatre is blanketed in mute white snow, ephemerally caught in the moon with its own circular window where there should be a catwalk. Where there should be box seats, there are the endless silhouettes of bare winter trees, black and still, impossibly tall. It is snowing inside and the world is painted in blues. 

The dancers kick, the snow flies, white and glittering bright as cold embers. They spin, gently catching the form of the air with that momentous light. The keys under his fingers let out a mournful sound, spiraling gently downward like the flakes of light that landed in Mme. Weber’s hair. 

There is no force in heaven and earth which he has tried that could produce such sounds and music which he hears in his dreams. 

That is, and it physically ails him to even think, until Mozart. 

At the very first moment, when the first cellist raised their bow, at that intake of breath before the song, Salieris soul had wrenched itself from whatever mystic rails it sped along and ruthlessly, without warning, performed a 180 that turned the entire world upside down. 

There was no longer sense. He was looking at things he had passed by every day for his  _ entire life _ and seeing them for the first time. It was against the  _ rules.  _ It was not fair. It burned, and it ached, it made him want to scream when it felt as though he had not scarcely raised his voice in years. He thought it would break him, the sheer pressure of the beauty; that it would tear him in two. 

Already prone to social anxieties, even seeing the man would make his stomach feel unstable, like a fire, like a ship. It was terrible, it made him giddy. 

Surprisingly, the music in his dreams did not change to mirror Mozart, no, it still flowed from that place he could never wakingly know. But- but. 

He did dream of Mozart dancing. 

To think, he had not slept for two days in utter terror of what would await him. Now he thinks he would prefer it, because this. This is much worse. 

He is supposed to be filling in the accompaniments for the aria of an opera commissioned by a duke who was much too boring to still draw breath, and the deadline was closer than comfortable, but for the life of him Salieri could not find his head. His mind was a blue theatre filled with snow. 

After several minutes of staring into space and not getting any work done at all, Antonio huffed at himself and pulled out a fresh sheet of vellum. His mind tugged at its leash like a dog who wanted to smell something interesting, so, he would let it. Let it delve. 

As usual, the moment he put his pen to paper he became overwhelmed with frustration. The music, infuriatingly, wouldn't leave him alone until the very second he reached out for it, at which point a wall like stone shored up between them. 

He groaned at himself and tried to avoid the compulsion to bang his head against the piano. Gently, though, he set his forehead down, allowing the self indulgence of dramatics. Just this once. Since there was no one watching. 

“Herr Salieri, what on  _ earth  _ is the matter?” 

Good fucking lord. 

Antonio whipped his body upright fast enough to break his own neck. Unfortunately, only a dagger of pain went through him, rather than the merciful end of all things. 

He saw instantly into the eyes of the devil himself. And he was staring at Salieri like he was the most magnificently unexpected joke. 

His stomach turned. 

It felt as though his carefully crafted armor of distant dignity had turned and wobbled into a sheet of paper, which he held now like a shield, aware the smallest blow would rend it apart. 

_ Oh, god,  _ he thought.  _ Just kill me.  _ Mozart’s pants were very, very…. tight. 

“Ah,” he said, eyes pointed away from that gaze. Shuffling his papers together to buy time, he calculated what he could give away in order to appear both earnest while also not illuminating a single truth in this exhausting game of chess. “Mozart. It is nothing. I did not… sleep well.”  _ Shit.  _ “If you are in need of the rooms,” he said, beginning to stand, meaning to flee. Wolfgang interrupted, horrifyingly shifting a half step closer. “No, no. I just happened to walk by and- well.” He did that little insouciant half grin. Salieri felt his control over the situation whither and die. “Please, what are you working on?” the other composer glanced down at the papers still on the piano and stopped short. “Oh, not that slags opera still, is it?”

An unwitting snort escaped him. Mozart’s courtly attitude went as obviously short as his attention span. God, the world may as well end. 

“Duke Knottingham is. of a taste,” was all he would comment. 

To his surprise and abject terror, Mozart threw his head back and laughed. “Of a taste! Right you are, Maestro, all though a good deal kinder than the man deserves.” With that brilliant smile laid on him, Mozart plopped himself onto the piano bench and tugged Antonio down with him by his coattails. He was still clutching half of his papers. 

“Alright,” he said. “Show me.” 

“Show you what?”

“Your opera, monsieur.” 

“Oh, no,” Salieri says, distracted by Mozart’s hands upon the half step. “It’s garbage.” 

There is a spot of silence in which Salieri desperately craves fiery death, and then a tinkling laugh. “You know, you never cease to surprise me. Show me anyway.” 

_

  
  


That night, Salieri undressed for bed as if in a trance. Entirely as he expected, Mozart had ripped his composition apart, inciting the sweetest of agonies. It somehow for once helped to not have had a high opinion of the work beforehand anyway. Admittedly, it had not been intended to be his best work, nor even made with a very high caliber of enthusiasm. 

Although Mozart had been ruthless, he was not… unkind. Through his endearing sheepishness, (and nearly always pushing his luck) he had somehow put him at ease enough to tell him exactly what he thought. And there was a lot. Almost, in fact, a suspicious amount. As if he’d heard the music before and begun ruminating on it already. 

Salieri shook his head in real time, pushing the narcissistic thought away. He hadn’t given copies to anyone but his librettist, who- well. 

Hm. 

Despite any premeditation's or plots, the discourse had made him feel… optimistic. Apparently, to loosen the hatches of inspiration, one had to endure a violent flurry of destructive honesty first. 

_ Interesting,  _ he mused, asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. 

_

  
  


The theatre was underwater. 

Inexplicably, this transformed the sound- like the water was the sound. It was liquid, it was everywhere. The dancers writhed and pulled and bared their necks, their teeth, a rictus caught between terror and erotica and delight and terror. Everything, the light that glinted gold on the gilted box seats, the tendons and ligaments of the dancers strained bodies, their hair in the current, the gauze of their clothes, was pulled by the same  _ thump, thump, thump _ ing beat. In direct contrast, something somewhere twinkled like a child’s music box. It was like nothing else, and he was caught in the dead center of the swirl. 

The world swam and sang like faeries, he breathed thick lungfuls of salt water like it was honey. The choir screamed and it sounded like ecstacy. A noise like a train, like a steam engine, like the earth rending, tore through it. 

He had never been so resentful to wake up, and that was  _ saying something.  _

**Author's Note:**

> oh haha you want to know what songs i was imagining you say? i thought youd never ask! the first dream is set to "cold", aqualung (yes the one from twilight) and the second is definitely redbone by childish gambino. the title of the work is from the lyrics of "salvatore" by lana del rey. love you!


End file.
